Defending a bar fight charge

Often, police do not involve themselves in bar fights. This tends to occur only if at least one party suffers extensive injuries, someone stole something, there is extensive property damage or the fight involves a weapon. Much of the time, these fights start because a bar has asked a patron to leave, and it does not go well.

If you are facing charges stemming from alleged involvement in a bar fight, the good news is that there are many avenues defendants in such cases may be able to explore with the help of a skilled defense attorney. Here is a look at two possible areas.

Witnesses

One possible area to explore with witnesses is the timeline. For example, if five witnesses each give different answers to how long the interval was between the first and last punch, it could cast doubt in a lot of ways. In fact, people frequently have differing estimates and perspectives on what they heard and saw, and memories are far from sacrosanct. A lawyer might be able to bring the reliability of certain witness testimony into question by pointing out how unrealistic answers to questions such as, “How long did it take him to run from the bar to the car?” can be.

Also, in some cases, some witnesses might have been drinking alcohol at the time of the alleged events. That could further cloud their reliability.

Video

If your case involves a video, you may think that a judge or jury will automatically agree with what it seems to show. This is not always the case. For example, a defense lawyer, in some cases, may be able to bring about a new understanding of what a video is actually showing though a careful analysis and breaking down of the scenes in the video. Also, in some instances, arguments may be able to be made to exclude video evidence. If any part of a video is missing, the odds of this approach succeeding could possibly be higher.